Arrow Is Trying to Juggle Too Much

Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.

As far as problems go on Arrow, having too much of a good thing isn’t such a bad one. It’s certainly preferable to Season 6’s chronic inability to do anything interesting with the post-Prometheus status quo. That said, the series seems to have a major issue with prioritizing storylines. There are too many characters and parallel storylines playing out right now, and that clash is holding the new season back from its full potential.

Case in point, “Level Two” marks the first appearance of the new Green Arrow impostor in several weeks. I had all but forgotten this character even existed with everything else going on lately. That begs the question – why is this character even a focus of the new season? Why is a new Green Arrow necessary right now? Obviously his rise plays into the growing tension between Star City’s residents and the overworked, underfunded police force, but does he really bring anything to the series that couldn’t be accomplished with the other members of Team Arrow? It honestly seems like the writers could get the same end result with much less fuss by simply having Rene take over as Green Arrow and focus on the rift between he and Dinah.

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Bethesda Responds to Fallout 76 Hacking Concerns, Planning Fixes

UPDATE 11/5: Bethesda have provided further comment to IGN contesting the validity of the claims made in a Reddit thread asserting that Fallout 76 is extremely vulnerable to hacking. Here is the full statement:

“Many of the claims in the thread are either inaccurate or based on incorrect assumptions. The community has however called to attention several issues that our teams are already actively tracking and planning to roll out fixes for. Our goal is always to deliver a great experience for all our players. Cheating or hacking will not be tolerated. We know our fan base is passionate about modding and customizing their experience in our worlds and it’s something we intend to support down the road.”

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Update: Blizzard Says It ‘Didn’t Pull Any Announcements From BlizzCon’

Update 2: Kotaku’s Jason Schreier, who broke the original story, has subsequently said that while a Diablo 4 tease featuring Blizzard co-founder Allen Adham does exist, his original report that it was going to drop at this year’s BlizzCon may have been off.

“What’s in dispute here is the timing,” wrote Schreier. “We had originally reported that it was planned for BlizzCon, but it’s possible that those plans were simply discussed and never solidified. (Either way, the video never happened). We can confirm that Diablo 4 is indeed in development.”

Update: A representative for Blizzard responded to IGN’s request for comment, saying, contrary to today’s earlier Kotaku report, that the company “didn’t pull any announcements from BlizzCon this year or have plans for other announcements.”

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Acclaimed Indie Game Battle Chef Brigade Is Getting Physical Switch And PS4 Editions

Limited Run Games, a publisher associated with game developer Mighty Rabbit Studios, has announced that it is making a physical edition for Battle Chef Brigade. The acclaimed indie game will be made available in both its PS4 and Switch versions.

Both physical editions will be made available on November 9 at 7 AM PT / 10 AM ET / 3 PM GMT. As the name implies, Limited Run Games only makes a certain amount of official physical editions for previously digital-only titles. So once every copy of the physical versions of Battle Chef Brigade is sold out, they are gone for good. Limited Run Games never restocks.

Released in 2017, Battle Chef Brigade mixes together brawler and puzzle gameplay. You play as Mina, a young woman who aspires to be a battle chef, a type of knight that hunts down monsters and cooks them into delicious dishes for the kingdom’s people. Each mission in the game requires you hunt down specific monsters before racing into the kitchen to solve tile-based puzzles in order to cook your ingredients and fulfill the dish requirements set out by the judges. Battle Chef Brigade was well-received by critics and players alike.

In August 2018, Battle Chef Brigade received an update that added split-screen multiplayer, as well as two new modes–called Survival and Free Play–and a new playable character.

Battle Chef Brigade is available for Nintendo Switch and PS4.

Brie Larson Went As Samus For Halloween, Wants To Be In Metroid Movie

Brie Larson, the Oscar winning actress who will be seen next as Captain Marvel, is apparently interested in playing Samus Aran, should Nintendo ever decide to go forward with a Metroid film.

As evidenced on her Instagram page, Larson dressed up as Zero Suit Samus for Halloween this year. After posting images of herself in costume, fans took notice and asked about a potential Metroid movie. Larson said she hopes it happens someday. “I want to make that movie,” she wrote.

Nintendo hasn’t made any announcements about a Metroid movie, but the company is increasingly interested in taking its franchises to the big screen. A new Mario movie from Despicable Me and Minions studio Illumination is on the way. Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Despicable Me franchise producer Chris Meladandri are co-producing the untitled film.

Larson isn’t the other celebrity who wants to play Samus in a Metroid movie. Ronda Rousey, the MMA and wrestling star who also makes movies now, previously talked about wanting to play Samus someday.

“I’ve always wanted to be Samus. That would be badass,” Rousey said. “I love how people found out later that it was a hot chick on the inside. And then most of the day you’re in a suit, so you can just hang out and eat donuts and be the star of Metroid. I hope they make a movie out of that.”

The next Metroid game is Metroid Prime 4, which is coming to Nintendo Switch. Pretty much nothing is known about it. The earlier Metroid Prime games were developed by Retro Studios, but it appears Bandai Namco is producing the new one for Nintendo Switch.

Larson won the Best Actress Oscar for her starring role in Room. Her next major role is Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel in the upcoming superhero film Captain Marvel, which is due out in March 2019. She’s set to appear again as Captain Marvel in April 2019’s untitled Avengers 4.

5 Minutes Of Overwatch’s New Character Ashe Gameplay

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We’re Streaming Two Hours of Overkill’s The Walking Dead Tomorrow

Overkill’s back with its newest take on the co-op first-person shooter genre, set in the Walking Dead universe and aptly titled: Overkill’s The Walking Dead.

Catch our first impressions as we stream the first two hours of the game tomorrow, November 6 from 1-3pm PT/4-6pm ET/9-11pm UK (Wednesday, November 7 from 6-8am AET).

IGNPlaysLive-OverkillTWD_YT-02

As always, you can watch right here on the front page of IGN.com, or you can find us on YouTubeTwitch, and Mixer.

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House of Cards: The Final Season Review

The following contains slight-spoilers for House of Cards’ sixth and final season, which is now streaming on Netflix.

Similar to the situation Fox’s Lethal Weapon found itself in this fall season, House of Cards had the unenviable task of returning to Netflix’s lineup without its driving key character, as the star playing him had been ousted from the series due to abhorrent behavior.

Also like the Martin Riggs situation over on Lethal Weapon, Frank Underwood gets an off-screen death, leaving the series with a serious charisma vacuum. And while House of Cards didn’t have to bring anyone new in to replace Kevin Spacey’s character, as it had Robin Wright’s Claire Underwood to lean on, it has the uphill climb of also wrapping up the entire story in eight episodes.

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Red Dead Redemption 2 Camp Issue Is Being Addressed, Says Rockstar

Rockstar has announced that it is working on an issue that is affecting Red Dead Redemption 2. Currently, a bug in the game can cause Sadie, Jack, John, and Abigail–four of Arthur Morgan’s camp companions–to disappear after the completion of chapter two.

“If you completed the mission ‘Polite Society, Valentine Style’ at the start of Chapter 2, but needed to use the Retry Checkpoint feature, then Sadie, Jack, John, and Abigail will only appear in camp when they have missions for you to complete,” Rockstar wrote in a Q&A blog post. “We are aware of the issue and are currently working on a fix to be included in an upcoming Title Update.”

While Rockstar works on a solution for the bug, the developer advises all players who have yet to complete “Polite Society, Valentine Style” to do so without retrying from a checkpoint. If you fail the mission, make sure you immediately abandon and restart it, or load an earlier save. These are currently the only ways to avoid encountering the glitch.

If you’ve already encountered the bug, you’ll have to keep playing RDR2 until chapter four to see Sadie, Jack, John, and Abigail in the camp again. You will miss the four character’s unique conversations unless you reload a previous save from before “Polite Society, Valentine Style” to avoid the glitch.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is available for Xbox One and PS4. In our review, Kallie Plagge gave the game a 9/10, writing, “Red Dead Redemption 2 is an excellent prequel, but it’s also an emotional, thought-provoking story in its own right, and it’s a world that is hard to leave when it’s done.”

The History of Fortnite… So Far

Fortnite rules the world of modern cross-platform gaming, but it wasn’t all that long ago that it seemed we knew barely anything about it.

Here’s the strange, twisting, timeline that led to the cultural phenomenon of battle royale.

2011

In September of 2011, Microsoft published Epic’s Gears of War 3, the culmination of the original Gears trilogy. Only a couple of months later in December, Epic’s Cliff Bleszinski formally announced Fortnite at the Spike Video Game Awards, alongside an accompanying teaser trailer.

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